Money Trees

The Douglas Fir and American Forestry, 1900–1944

Around the start of the last century, the forests of the Pacific Northwest were viewed as dynamic sites of industrial production, and also as natural landscapes of ecological integrity. These competing visions arose as the nation’s professional foresters faced conflicting demands from lumber companies and government regulators. External pressures converged with internal scientific debates within the profession, leading foresters to question the proper scope of their work.

Money Trees is an interdisciplinary history of the crucial decades that shaped the modern American conception of the value of the forest. It begins with early 20th century environmental changes in the Douglas Fir forests of the Pacific Northwest, which led to increasing divisiveness and controversy among foresters. Brock balances this regional story with a national view of the intellectual and political currents that governed forest management, marshaling archival evidence from industry, government, and scientific sources.

An important contribution to environmental scholarship, Money Trees offers a nuanced vision of forestry’s history and its past relationship to both wilderness activism and scientific ecology. With fresh perspectives on well-known environmental figures such as Bob Marshall and Gifford Pinchot, it will add to the conversation among scholars in environmental history, history of science, and the history of the American West. It will be welcomed as a key resource across the spectrum of environmental studies, and by anyone interested in natural resources, land management, the role of science in environmentalism, and the modern wilderness movement.

Connect

Resources

"This scholarly work is a thorough interdisciplinary history of forestry in the Pacific Northwest and a significant contribution to environmental studies." - The College

"Brock's book is a good primer to understanding that science is never static and rarely the sole determiner in land management policy: culture, politics, economics, and capital all play parts in determining the course of federal forest policy. This book would be very appropriate for graduate classes in the history of science and environmental history, particularly for those interested in the history of public land management and in Oregon history." -- Lincoln Bramwell, Oregon Historical Quarterly

"By documenting the important and evolving relationship between foresters and lumber companies, Brock reveals how foresters ultimately helped industry derive not just economic value but also long-term ecological value from the Douglas-fir forests." -- Eben Lehman, Forest History Today

"Scholars of forest history will find much to glean from this book." -- Greg Gordon, Western Historical Quarterly

"The Douglas-fir is tightly woven into this century-long history, and in Brock's telling, it dominates the historical narrative as thoroughly as it defines the forest canopy, which only underscores her concluding insight about this tree's central position as the region's "totem species and economic focus--the money tree" (p. 200)." -- Char Miller, Journal of Forestry